Ok I may regret this but in the interests of debate and the spirit of open mindness (Belle I wouldn't entirely classify myself as a new urbanist but I do know quite a few of the major figures in the movement, I am sympathetic and try to keep an open mind though given all that I suppose I have drunk the kool aid and should just admit it and be damned!) thought some of you might be interested in Andres Duany's acceptance speech for both himself and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk winning the Driehaus Prize, the world's largest architectural prize, last year. Most people won't have heard of this prize but it's worth a cool US $200,000. The reason people won't have heard of it is that to qualify you have to meet the following criteria:

• Should be an architect with a distinguished career
• Should be accomplished in the disciplines of Traditional or Classical Architecture and/or Urban Design
• Should have designed structures that create positive, long-lasting societal contributions (culturally, environmentally, artistically)
• Should be an advocate of the traditional city and the public realm
• Should emphasize sustainability and innovation

Not exactly roll up roll up all ye starchitects then.

Anyway Andres Dunay's remarks are rather interesting and there are some juicy bon mots to be had such as did you know that Peter Eisenman and Leon Krier are friends? Who'd have thought it?! But obvious when you think about it as they must have crossed swords on the architectural tutoring and debating circuit many times so couldn't not have gained a respect for each other. There's also a faustian pact in there with regards to New Urbanism and the taste of the American middle class which I suspect you might be interested in. And then Duany lays down the gauntlet to his traditionalist colleagues… I wonder how well that went down.

So enjoy!

Quote:

Driehaus Prize Remarks
Andres Duany

Today we have spoken about Richard Driehaus, of his generosity and perspicacity. But something I've come to see in him is perhaps of greater importance: his enthusiasm. The energy of enthusiasm is important to move things forward. Most of us here are enthusiasts about this great thing, traditional architecture and urbanism. And we are something else that we don’t often realize: most of us here are brave, too, as by practicing traditional architecture and urbanism we enter the ring with champions like Lutyens and Palladio.

Modernists do not. They write their own rules of the game, so they always win. Peter Eisenman, for example, is invariably the champion of Eisenman-esque architecture. There are no other contenders. This is clever, but in the end it is not interesting because there is no tension. Eisenman's achievements are noticed less every time. He does ever bigger buildings that are ever more swiftly forgotten. They are victories over himself, about which only he can care.

But what if Peter were to design a classical building? What if he were to attempt something as dangerous as to enter that ring with the real champions? There would be a renewed interest in him as an architect, to say the least. And I’m sure it would be a great performance -- Leon Krier, who is his friend, says Eisenman knows Palladio very well.

Designing a classical building is virtually the only thing that remains for those avant-garde architects. They have already explored every shape that could be hyper cantilevered, crashed, randomized, slashed, perforated, photo-tuned, upturned, bent, dematerialized, dissed, or otherwise transgressed. It is by now the expected. There remains only their engaging in the ultimate test, to compete with the likes of Lutyens and Palladio, under common rules.

But even that would be merely entertainment. For the challenge that is upon us, traditional architecture and urbanism must be more useful than amusing.

It has been Lizz’s and my most serious contribution, I think, not so much to recover traditional architecture and urbanism, nor to evolve it, nor even to practice it as widely as we have, but to empower it again through collective endeavor. This achievement requires that credit be widely distributed, because our work is also the work of others; so there will be many names mentioned in this presentation.

But for not having met Robert Davis, some of these others may well be up here today receiving this award. Among them are Robert Orr, John Massengale, Victor Dover, Dhiru Thadani, Neal Payton, John Torti, Pat Pinnell, Peter Calthorpe, Liz Moule, Stef Polyzoides, Peter Katz, Ray Gindroz, Dan Solomon. It is very unusual, in this field of authorial individualism, to have such people working towards the same end.

And we should not make a distinction between designers and developers, as both are creators. Buff and Johnny Chace, Galen Weston, Patrick Bienvenue, Robert and Daryl Davis, David Tomes, Greg and Susan Whittaker, Joe Alfandre, Steve Maun, Craig Robins, and scores of others are as knowledgeable about design as we the designers must be about development.

And then the teachers. In the schools, for a short window either side of 1970, there was a genuine open-mindedness about architecture. It was the time when Michael Graves, Alan Greenberg and, above all, Vincent Scully, taught us to love and appreciate all good buildings. They didn't turn us into style bigots. I'm most grateful for that. Because of them I visit the world with much more enjoyment.

With the partners at DPZ, and the professors at the University of Miami, Leon Krier holds a special place as a teacher. In addition to urbanism, he taught us how to be polemical. Those razor-sharp cartoons clarified timeless concepts at the explicit expense of the ridiculous practices of modernism. Over the years his drawings, projects, and writings have systematically engaged everything from the region to the detail of buildings. They now constitute a complete body of knowledge. We had only to adjust them to American conditions, and to develop the massive delivery systems required by the present situation.

Receiving the Driehaus Prize with the help of so many, it is right that we should share it. It would be incorrect to take the stipend for ourselves. So Lizz and I have arranged its donation to a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the furtherance of this endeavor that we share. The publication of Leon Krier's complete works will be its first achievement.

As you may know, it is not my practice to be as nice to everyone as I have been today. But on this beautiful occasion I will continue to do so by thanking our opponents. We are grateful to them because they have discerned the threat that our ideas pose to theirs. By relentlessly attacking the New Urbanism from their illustrious institutions, they have provided us with visible platforms. I must thank them also for maintaining such a high level of strategic ineptitude. How easy they have made it for us outside their circumscribed world. We thank them for how much they concede by sticking to irrelevant ideologies; by their fascination with the transient, the unworkable, the uncomfortable, the unreproducible, the unpopular, the expensive, the unbuildable, the useless, the repellent, and the unintelligible. That has been a gift greater even than this prize.

This gift has not been without sacrifice on their part. Modernist architects of great talent have willingly performed for the regard of only about six critics. And they do so knowing that these critics have a history of raising them up and then discarding them once they are bored. We have seen in our own time the marginalization of truly brilliant architects -- Paul Rudolph, Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, James Stirling, Bob Stern, Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman -- all once raised to the heavens and then dismissed, even when at the peak of their powers. As with Paul Rudolph, these architects will outlive the critics, but it is a terrible waste of resources.

We have taken a different course. We seek judgment, not at the mercy of those six, but in the regard of America at large. When people ask, "Aren't you worried about what Orousoff wrote?" I tell them, "But I don't know anyone who matters to our practice who knows him." What he writes has no effect. For the time it would take me to write a publishable response, I could edit a code that would affect perhaps hundreds of buildings. Besides, if we were to respond, it would only empower those critics by granting them a visibility in our world that they do not have.

What then is this world of the New Urbanism, and why is traditional architecture important to it? There are many reasons, but the primary one is that because traditional architecture is a common language of the American middle class, it is the symbolic discourse through which we implement the social and ecological ideals of the Charter of the New Urbanism. The enormous American middle class is the group that really matters, and yet they are the only consumers of architecture not addressed in the modernist schools or the professional periodicals.

Beyond the snobbism, there is a reason for that. To the middle, class unlike the poor, the market gives choice -- and given choice they choose traditionalism. Their ability to evade the modernist discourse (which the poor cannot do) confuses architects. But it does not confuse us. It is through the steady reputation of traditional architecture that we enlist the middle class to our cause, which is to have them inhabit again a walkable, compact, and diverse urbanism.

You might ask: but isn't the American middle class culturally trivial? The response to that depends on your conception of culture; it can be either the late modernist one of cultural activity as critique, or ours (coinciding with the early modernist concept) of cultural activity as action. Theirs attempts to express the condition of the world, while ours attempts to reform the condition of the world.

You see, the lifestyle of the American middle class is the root cause of the environmental problems of the world today. It is that simple. It is the way we supersize our habitat, the way we consume as entertainment, the way we drive around to do ordinary things, the way we so freely allocate land to our use, and even how we choose to eat, that is the cause of climate change. It is this lifestyle, and now its export version (pushed by architectural consultant-criminals) to Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, South America and Eastern Europe, which is responsible for the environmental problems we will all suffer. It was traditional architecture that both politically and technically enabled New Urbanists’ extraordinarily early commitment to environmentalism.

If that is what traditional architecture has done for us, the urbanists, what can it do for itself?

The current renaissance of traditional architecture must be seen not as a single event, but as a process. A first generation restored the old and sturdy citadel which is the discipline of the classical language. The next generation now entering the peak of their practice can continue to unfurl beautiful banners from the ramparts, in the hopes that virtue will be recognized by all … or it can sally to take territory by force. There is so much territory forlorn by American design. I do not allude to the bits held by modernism, but to the vast areas held by mindless production builders, by the green gadgets that pass for environmental buildings, by the nauseating plan books, by the junk-space of civic buildings, by the junk-products at Home Depot, by the hapless mobile home industry. These are blights on our physical and cultural landscape that can only be redeemed by traditional designers. This is risky, I know. We could jeopardize the impeccable reputation of the citadel … but we could also show the space that traditional architecture can occupy as nothing else can.

In this quest, we must be as courageous as the generation of pioneers. Bob Stern, Alan Greenberg, Tom Beeby, Rob Krier, and Thomas Gordon Smith all risked their good name by entering the trackless wilderness of post-modernism. But see what they gained on the other side: the architecture that we now so confidently reward with the Driehaus Prize.

The best proof that architecture has been well and truly recovered through that heroic thirty-year campaign is that it can be dependably taught. Classicists today can be as good as their masters even while still young. I am aware that the rigor of the classical canon enables this instruction. I am also aware that the discipline of the Orders was the compass that guided architecture out of postmodernism. But in teaching the Orders today we should take care that students not become overly dependent of bookish authority. They must not learn the fear of being caught "incorrect." The measure should be what Lizz calls "plain old good building." We are, after all, building primarily for common folk and not patrons.

Will the current generation bore deeper still into refinement and elitism, or will it spread classical architecture out to a broad democratic, indeed populist, future? Will it continue republishing ever more esoteric treatises, or will it write new ones conceived to serve, not the 16th or even the 20th Century, but this future which is upon us?

To explain what I mean, please permit me a rudimentary example. How can there be a viable canon of architecture that is incapable of producing an opening wider than it is high -- by that I mean a horizontally proportioned intercolumniation? We cannot be effective today if we cannot even deal with a simple barn opening or porte-cochere. And that is just one problem. We confront the conclusion that the classical canon must be expanded if it is to engage the 21st Century.

I would propose a new ethos -- one no longer dedicated to the recovery of the classical canon of Vitruvius, Palladio and Vignola, but to expanding that canon. Taking care that this process does not devolve into neo-postmodernist dissipation, it must be based on the authority of masters and masterpieces. First we must transcend the authority of the historic treatises, to rescue that which was discarded in the reductive process of writing them. Then we must recover to our side those transitional 2Oth Century architects that historians have assigned to the modernist camp -- where they reside as the foundation of their authority -- when they are, in fact, a late, great flowering of classicism.

Take Frank Lloyd Wright. You could see the Prairie School as the beginning of the fall, but you could also see it as the last of the Greek revivals. Wright was among those who, instead of the Parthenon and all of its proprieties, took the Erechtheion and all of its freedoms, to extract a contemporary architecture. If the Erechtheion -- its dynamic massing and multiple columniations, its agile engagement with topography, its free repertoire of moldings, its localized symmetries and rotated approaches, its complex, multi-leveled interior, its contradictions and unresolved tension -- is classical, then the young Wright is certainly among the great masters of classicism. Wright must be on our side if we are to take the territory defined by the 21st century.

Another master of the canon would be Jose Plecnik. Plecnik, who knowing the classical language perfectly, took it and translated it to the folk vernacular. Like Shakespeare, who found literature in a moribund Latin and bequeathed it in a native English with vitality to spare, Plecnik shows us the workings of what my brother Douglas calls “the vernacular mind.” Not “the vernacular,” which is a style, but the vernacular mind, which is the way of folk art. It is the ability to compose from memory and circumstance, with found materials, of working sequentially through anything and everything, with craft but not perfection. The robustness which Plecnik brought to architecture is essential, I think, to the withering that the 21st century will impose upon us. Leon knows it. Look at his American buildings at Miami, and at Seaside and Windsor. What lessons do they hold? Not one of them is correct in the canonical sense, and yet they are canonical buildings. And so I would also bring into the canon the work of Leon Krier.

Okay, he mentioned Venturi, not me. I've been to two of Venturi Scott Brown's buildings—the Seattle Art Museum and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery—and they do not even approach the greatness of their idol, John Soane. Now, I'll fully admit I don't know much of the contemporary canon that he's talking about, but which of these architects are producing classical buildings as good as Palladio?

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That's because Venturi (and by association Denise Scott Brown) is a brilliant theoretician first and an architect second. He thinks too much before he makes a move and it shows. Too many of those buildings are like stage sets but Venturi loves that because he's coming out of pop art. Everything in the Sainsbury wing feels forced. It doesn't come naturally because he keeps labouring the point about how clever he is.

And your question is so unfair! One could turn it around and ask which contemporary architect is producing buildings as good as Le Corbusier?

From what I've seen Bob Stern, Alan Greenberg, Tom Beeby, Rob Krier, and Thomas Gordon Smith do produce good work but to pin up for comparison with Palladio just would not be fair. Some of it is stiff, some of it is way too academic, some of it needs to break some rules. Some it down right bores me. And some of it isn't to my taste at all. But if these guys were producing works as good as Palladio you'd know all about it because it would be all over the media.

From having an awareness of their work I think it would be fairer to say they are on a learning curve. But the point is that having been in the anything goes wilderness of post modernism these guys got out the other side by rediscovering that there were rules. The consequence of that is that they make good teachers and have open minds. Look at what Stern has done with Yale for example.

But to at least try and answer your question I would say that for starters, and this is deeply unfashionable of me, Leon Krier can be good when he builds which is very rarely. Not, I have to admit, that I've been in a Leon Krier building. But he does his own thing within the classical language, knows when and where to bend and break the rules, and those occasional pieces can be good. They are most decidedly from his hand and not in anyway derivative or a pastiche. In some ways it’s a great shame he hasn't built more at least to demonstrate his talent.

The other person I'd list as being good is Scott Merrill who doesn't have a particularly high profile but just gets on with it.

It's a deceptively simple structure that at first glance appears uncomplicated but is actually quite rich and admirably controlled. There's a touch of late Joseph Maria Olbrich and Heinrich Tessenow about it and I rather like that. Obviously neither of them are particularly fashionable either so I realise that this is a bit of an acquired taste! But I have always been pretty catholic in that regard anyway.

__________________'The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed.'William Gibson

And your question is so unfair! One could turn it around and ask which contemporary architect is producing buildings as good as Le Corbusier?

Ooh, snap. Your question is equally unfair though, as you know how much I love modernism!

The reason I asked it though is because of the line "Classicists today can be as good as their masters even while still young", which is soon followed by "propose a new ethos -- one no longer dedicated to the recovery of the classical canon of Vitruvius, Palladio and Vignola, but to expanding that canon". The implication of which is that we've already passed the rediscovery phase, which every revival goes through, and we're ready for the expansion of the languauge.

Looking at the Seaside chapel, the interior space does actually seem quite pleasant:

...and yet, I just can't help but think of dozens of churches from the last 100 years that just seem so much more interesting (FLW's Unity Temple, at which my ex-girlfriend's grandparents worship, Gillespie Kidd &amp; Coia's St Bride's, Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut, Jørn Utzon's Bagsvard Church church, etc etc etc), and when I go back to thinking about the Seaside chapel, I just can't get Grant Wood out of my head:

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This is so funny. You reach for something in your arsenal and reach for mine!

Listen I'm not disputing that any of the churches you list are not anything other than masterpeices. But it is very difficult for me to reach for classical examples from the same period to combat that! Perhaps Lutyen's Liverpool Catherdral if it had been built.

With Classicism we're talking about an architectural language that was largely marginalised from the end of the second world war until the mid 70's. How many talented architects from that period would have sought to explore it at the risk of being ostracised and marginalised and seeing their critical reputation in tatters? Even when it begins to re-emerge its treated as an ironic joke as a way to avoid that. The only serious British Classical architect I can think of from that period that is worth their salt is Raymond Erith. And that's, er..., it.

I think you also have to understand the context and audience that Duany is speaking to. The whole re-discovery of the canon thing has gone hand in hand with a dogmatic insistence on adhering to the rules. Every building produced is scrutinised through that lens. It makes for a very inward looking and elitist movement. But Duany is a reformer and he sees this massive middle ground that isn't occupied by either modernist or the very tiny classical camp and he wants to claim it. He's pointing out that it will never happen for the classical camp if its adherents would rather nit pick over the execution of the details. He also thinks that by doing so they are stifling creativity and consequently risk being stuck in a cul-de-sac (pardon pun). I happen to agree with him.

The thing I like about the Seaside Chapel is that it is a decent ordinary charming piece of work that is probably well loved by its congregation and community. Ok it isn't a peice of high art in the way that Ronchamp is but it is still good work and deserves some respect. And ok the Grant Woods (ouch!) reference did make me laugh! Yes I have to admit it is hard to shake that off and see beyond it.

The reason I have a soft spot for Classicism is because of the likes of Lutyens and Plecnik. They seem to get such joy and invention out of what can be a very humane language. A language that reached enormous creative and artistic heights. It is also a language that solved it's problems with regards to urbanism. Something that modernism still struggles with. I see a lot within the Classical langauge we could learn from. So it depresses me that this enormous langauge, that brings with it so much knowledge, was set aside as somehow unworthy of examination on grounds that seem little more than ideolgical dogma i.e. as being nothing more that the oppressive dead hand of history that had to be lifted.

And no I don't know what's going on with that building either. It doesn't appear to be particularly well resolved three dimensionally.

__________________'The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed.'William Gibson

More than a thousand proposals from rural businesses and communities have been awarded £67 million from Rural Priorities, as much as the previous three funding rounds put together, it has been announced today.
Successful applicants have included a dairy business in East Lothian who will use their grant to develop the business and give it a competitive edge, and a renewable energy project for a small company in Orkney.
This latest round of Rural Priorities funding was opened up in response to stakeholder demand and has been marked by an unprecedented number of applications for agri-environment projects.
The announcement came as Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead toured parts of Scotland with Mariann Fischer Boel, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr Lochhead said:
"The Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP), and in particular Rural Priorities, is a crucial part of the Scottish Government's economic recovery plan.
"I am pleased therefore to be able to provide funding to so many rural businesses as they strive to develop, expand and remain competitive.
"Successful applicants have included a dairy business in East Lothian who will use their grant to develop the business and give it a competitive edge, and the Fair Isle Bird Observatory, a development which will completely transform the remote island community.
"I am also absolutely delighted to see that, even in the current economic climate, the appetite for agri-environment funding has not waned - far from it.
"Applications for this type of funding have reached such levels that we have received almost as many in this funding round as in the entire first two years of the previous Rural Stewardship Scheme.
"I have been particularly keen to ensure that, despite such demand, there have been resources to fund a number of high quality projects. However, high levels of demand mean that there may well be greater competition for funds in future rounds.

As the construction industry faces up to the trauma of the credit crunch, a Highland architecture practice is opening a new office in Glasgow.

Dualchas Building Design - well known for its rural housing - has moved its city office to Templeton at Glasgow Green. And new housing minister, Alex Neil MSP, will be there for the official opening.

Dualchas architect, Neil Stephen said.

"The new office shows that we are confident about the future, and that there are opportunities for architecture practices, despite the recession. We're delighted that the minister will be there to show his support for our industry.

"People often focus on renovations and extensions when the housing market is struggling, and we hope to show that high quality design can be cost effective, as well as beautiful."

An open day for members of the public will be held between 9.30am and 3.30pm on Saturday the 18th of April at unit 4, Doges, Templeton Business Centre at Glasgow Green. Free advice from architects will be available, as well as advise on architect designed house kits from Hebridean Contemporary Homes.

The design is based on the layout of the settlement at Diurnish in Kyle, and will comprise a combination of terraces in render, and 'barns' in timber, stone and corrugated sheet. The buildingsbuildings are low energy incorporating superinsulation.

Last up a week ago. It's just groundworks at the moment, so not much to see other than a lots of mud and some JCBs. I'm quietly looking forward to seeing this complete. Rural Design aren't exactly OMA, but they're building up a solid body of work that's far above the (admittedly low) quality of most new domestic projects in the Highlands.

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THROW OF THE DICE: Inverness Town House and Nessie feature on the Highland edition of Monopoly
More Pictures

The Loch Ness Monster, the 19th-century Inverness Town House and the Press and Journal are to feature in a Highland version of Monopoly.

Ben Nevis, CairnGorm mountain and Inverness Airport could also be included in the latest edition of the board game, which will be launched before Christmas.

People in the Highlands are being asked to choose landmarks and places that could become spaces on the board, but the Press and Journal is one of a number of spaces that have already been allocated by the game’s makers.

The newspaper’s logo could appear on one of three community chest spaces, with players who land on the square having to pick up a card which could impose a fine, pay out an insurance premium or send them to jail.

Nessie is likely to be the most expensive “property”, swapping places with London’s Mayfair on the original Monopoly board.

Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club president Gary Campbell said: “Nessie is a real-life monopoly, generating millions of pounds for the Scottish economy.

“She is Mayfair and all the rest put together, so would be worthy of winning top spot. Nessie is worth about £25-30million a year to Scotland, drawing people from all over the world.”

The new game, which could be produced in English and Gaelic, is also being tipped to boost tourism in the region.

Inverness Provost Jimmy Gray said: “I am certain the Monopoly Highland edition will be a great hit, and with Nessie set to appear very prominently – as we assured by the makers – then it really will have international appeal.”

An Aberdeen version of Monopoly was launched in 2006, with Union Street, Duthie Park, Aberdeen Airport, Aberdeen University and Marischal College earning a place on the board.

The Press and Journal also features on the community chest in the city edition.

Voting for the Highland version starts at 10am today, with the poll closing at 10am on April 2.

THROW OF THE DICE: Inverness Town House and Nessie feature on the Highland edition of Monopoly
More Pictures

The Loch Ness Monster, the 19th-century Inverness Town House and the Press and Journal are to feature in a Highland version of Monopoly.

Ben Nevis, CairnGorm mountain and Inverness Airport could also be included in the latest edition of the board game, which will be launched before Christmas.

People in the Highlands are being asked to choose landmarks and places that could become spaces on the board, but the Press and Journal is one of a number of spaces that have already been allocated by the game’s makers.

The newspaper’s logo could appear on one of three community chest spaces, with players who land on the square having to pick up a card which could impose a fine, pay out an insurance premium or send them to jail.

Nessie is likely to be the most expensive “property”, swapping places with London’s Mayfair on the original Monopoly board.

Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club president Gary Campbell said: “Nessie is a real-life monopoly, generating millions of pounds for the Scottish economy.

“She is Mayfair and all the rest put together, so would be worthy of winning top spot. Nessie is worth about £25-30million a year to Scotland, drawing people from all over the world.”

The new game, which could be produced in English and Gaelic, is also being tipped to boost tourism in the region.

Inverness Provost Jimmy Gray said: “I am certain the Monopoly Highland edition will be a great hit, and with Nessie set to appear very prominently – as we assured by the makers – then it really will have international appeal.”

An Aberdeen version of Monopoly was launched in 2006, with Union Street, Duthie Park, Aberdeen Airport, Aberdeen University and Marischal College earning a place on the board.

The Press and Journal also features on the community chest in the city edition.

Voting for the Highland version starts at 10am today, with the poll closing at 10am on April 2.